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Indian official sacked for going on leave for 24 years

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he was shocked by what he saw in the corridors of power after moving to New Delhi following his landslide election victory in May last year.

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

[NEW DELHI] An Indian public official has been sacked for taking leave 24 years ago and never returning to his desk in the country's notoriously work-shy bureaucracy, the urban development ministry said Thursday.

Assistant executive engineer A.K Verma went on leave in 1990 after joining India's central public works department (CPWD) a decade earlier.

Mr Verma defied bosses' orders to return to work after his requests for additional leave were denied, but it took until 2007 for formal dismissal charges to be brought against him, the ministry said in a statement.

Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu ordered his dismissal in order to "streamline the functioning of CPWD and to ensure accountability," it said.